Search Results for: Greece

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SERIES of exemptions from the European Union’s (EU) new energy taxation directive have been proposed by the European Commission for the eastern and southern European countries joining the EU in May (barring Cyprus).

They would be added to the already long list of exemptions negotiated by existing Member States that prompted EU internal market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein to liken the legislation to “Gruyere cheese”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has performed a U-turn and has asked European Union (EU) ministers to extend for two years a pilot scheme allowing Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Greece to continue levying reduced VAT rates (of six per cent and eight per cent for Greece) on small services for repairing and altering household linen, and clothing.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
AT least 22.5 per cent by weight of plastic packaging and packaging waste will have to be recycled from the end of 2008 in most European Union (EU) Member States, under an agreement reached between the European Parliament and the EU council of Ministers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has called for a redoubling of efforts to create gas networks linking European, north African and Levantine countries. Speaking to a Euro-Mediterranean ministerial conference, in Rome, de Palacio highlighted the available resources of natural gas in the EU’s Mediterranean neighbours and called for cross-border infrastructure to be improved.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN has become the second European Union (EU) country to be hit by fines levied by the European Court of Justice, being penalised for failing to improve the environmental health standards of its inland bathing waters. Judges ordered Spain to pay Euro 624,150 every year for each percentage of its rivers and lakes used for bathing that fail to meet quality standards imposed by the EU bathing water directive.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE COMPULSORY recycling of metal packaging waste is to be raised from 15 to 50 per cent under an agreement reached on Monday between the European Parliament and the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers. The new target for metal packaging waste is the same as that set originally by the European Commission though levels for other materials have been raised.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union (EU)-funded project has developed a technical system to search and retrieve the increasing amount of information held in digital moving image video, still photograph or audio archives. Its coordinators say that the project will be very useful for museums and research institutes who store such material.…

BY MARK ROWE
A TURKISH museum that recalls the pioneering mental health care of the middle ages has been awarded the Council of Europe’s museum prize for 2004. The Museum of Health Care in Edirne was praised by the judges for its “successful and exemplary approach to the psychologically sensitive theme of mental disorder”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have been asked to approve a detailed fishing access deal allowing EU fishing boats access to the Atlantic fishing waters off west Africa’a Guinea Bissau until June 2006. Under the agreement, licences to fish shrimp will be granted to Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek vessels, with boats from Spain (enjoying the overwhelming majority of rights), Italy and Greece being allowed to take fin-fish/cephalopods.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
AGRICULTURE ministers of five European Union (EU) countries have pledged to reject the European Commission’s proposals for ending tobacco-growing subsidies and say they will draw up an alternative scheme aimed at continuing production. A letter signed by the agriculture ministers of Greece, Spain, Italy, France and Portugal warned the Commission of the “very serious” social and employment impact of its plan, which they say will lead to widespread job losses with “grave” social consequences.…